The two files generated by the BIND 9.x server dnssec-keygen program must be group owned by the server administrator account or deleted once they have been copied to the key file in the name server.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-272387	SRG-APP-000516-DNS-000086	BIND-9X-001300	SV-272387r1123881_rule	2025-07-24	3

Description
To enable zone transfer (requests and responses) through authenticated messages, it is necessary to generate a key for every pair of name servers. The key also can be used for securing other transactions such as dynamic updates, DNS queries, and responses. The binary key string that is generated by most key generation utilities used with DNSSEC is Base64 encoded. A TSIG is a string used to generate the message authentication hash stored in a TSIG RR and used to authenticate an entire DNS message.

Description

To enable zone transfer (requests and responses) through authenticated messages, it is necessary to generate a key for every pair of name servers. The key also can be used for securing other transactions such as dynamic updates, DNS queries, and responses. The binary key string that is generated by most key generation utilities used with DNSSEC is Base64 encoded. A TSIG is a string used to generate the message authentication hash stored in a TSIG RR and used to authenticate an entire DNS message.

ℹ️ Check
With the assistance of the DNS administrator, identify all dnssec-keygen key files that reside on the BIND 9.x server. An example dnssec-keygen key file will look like the following: Kns1.example.com_ns2.example.com.+161+28823.key OR Kns1.example.com_ns2.example.com.+161+28823.private For each key file identified, verify that the key file is owned by "named": # ls -al -rw-r-----. 1 named named 77 Jul 1 15:00 Kns1.example.com_ns2.example.com+161+28823.key If the key files are not owned by named, this is a finding.

ℹ️ Check

With the assistance of the DNS administrator, identify all dnssec-keygen key files that reside on the BIND 9.x server. An example dnssec-keygen key file will look like the following: Kns1.example.com_ns2.example.com.+161+28823.key OR Kns1.example.com_ns2.example.com.+161+28823.private For each key file identified, verify that the key file is owned by "named": # ls -al -rw-r-----. 1 named named 77 Jul 1 15:00 Kns1.example.com_ns2.example.com+161+28823.key If the key files are not owned by named, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Change the group ownership of the keys to the root group. # chgrp named:named <key_file>.